Chapter 8
John jumps onto the ladder first, scaling quickly and efficiently. I put Michael on the ladder next and pray to whatever higher being might be listening that my brother won’t fall.
“You have to climb, buddy,” I say.
“Last one to the top is dead meat.”
“Yes,” I say, unable to help my grim smile as I lean my forehead against a cold metallic rung. “Last one to the top is dead meat.”
Michael climbs a few rungs, singing as he goes, but the further he climbs, the higher pitched his song becomes, until he sounds like an opera singer blaring the final note of the performance.
“John, he’s not going to make it to the top like this,” I say, careful to keep my voice to a whisper, though it can’t be doing any good with how Michael is yelling.
John, halfway up the rungs, turns his face back down, his glasses hanging precariously at the tip of his nose. He starts to come back down, but I shake my head. “No, you keep going. I’ll get him up.”
Already, Michael is climbing back down, his little song becoming ever quieter the closer he gets to the ground. I quickly search the cramped little space for anywhere the two of us could hide, but we’ll be discovered eventually. I’ve no doubt of it.
It’s up, or wait to be found.
It’s probably a fruitless endeavor either way, but a desperate plan is forming in my mind, and it won’t work if the pirates get a hold of the boys.
“All right, Michael,” I say, gripping my brother tight. “Let’s play koala, okay?”
Instantly, my brother links his arms around my neck and crawls onto my back, wrapping his legs around my waist.
“Wendy, you can’t—”
Before John can convince me out of this, voices from the courtyard reach my ears, questioning which direction we could have gone. It’s only moments now until they turn the corner and find the door to the clock tower.
So I put my hands on the rungs of the ladder and ascend.
A few timeson the way up, I fight the urge to tell Michael, “Don’t let go.” Michael has a tendency to home in on every word in a sentence but the negative ones.
“Hold tight,” I whisper instead. “Hold tight to sissy.”
“Hold tight,” he says back, squeezing his legs around me with increased vigor each time he says it.
Even with adrenaline coursing through my veins, the climb is arduous with Michael on my back. He’s rather small for his age, but that doesn’t make this easy. Halfway up the ladder, the sweat beading on my palms begins to present problems.
Three-quarters of the way, my limbs are quaking.
“We all fall down,” Michael starts chanting, which doesn’t at all help. Neither does craning my neck to look down. My stomach drops, the height of the clock tower gaping beneath me.
“Wendy. Come on. Just a few more rungs,” says John, infusing his voice with a calmness I know he can’t be experiencing. “Just a little further.”
The next rung is effortful. The one after that—I have to bite back a scream of exertion.
“Push with your legs,” says John, his finger tapping anxiously along the edge of the platform.
When I almost slip and let out a gasp, John yelps.
No. No, I will not fall. Not with Michael on my back. I’ve climbed this ladder a thousand times. Climbed more treacherous surfaces, just to escape having to think about my fate. I can do this.
I steel myself, bracing myself with my breath, then scale the next rung. Apparently Michael feels more confident seventy feet off the ground than he did eight rungs up, because he scrambles off my back, climbing up the last few rungs until John practically yanks him from the ladder and catapults him backward onto the platform. Michael’s foot finds the crown of my head on the way, and I have to fight to keep my fingers fastened around the slick metal.
Once Michael’s weight is off my shoulders, I find it easier to climb. By the time I get to the top, John has his hands underneath my armpits, hauling me up.
“You should have let me do that. Should have let me carry Michael.” Though there’s scolding in his voice, my brave younger brother is shaking with the trepidation of having watched us from the top. “Pretty impressive, though,” he admits with a shrug.
I extend my finger vertically over my mouth. John places a hand over Michael’s just in time for a crash to come resounding from the bottom of the tower.
The three of us huddle together on the platform, trying to keep out of sight from below, but the entrance to the platform itself is angled such that if one of the pirates backs up enough to get a good angle…
“Up there,” one of them says. “Stupid children fled up there.”
Do I resent being called a child by a man who attended my betrothal ball? Hard to tell when my siblings and I are fighting not to breathe.
“Well then,” drawls the captain’s menacing voice. “You’d best go and bring them back down.”
The ladder rattles as someone weighty grabs onto it from the bottom. John’s eyes go wide, and since he’s the one holding Michael, he gestures toward the screws holding the ladder in place. I nod, panicking a bit until I remember all the pins hidden in my now-drenched hair. I remove one, ready to detach the ladder and allow the climbing man to enjoy the fall, when something happens that causes the entire platform to shake.
The shadow of the minute hand clicks into place.
Up above us, from within the cogs and cobwebs, a bell sounds.
No.
Part of me expects the shadows to have the decency to wait until the twelfth bell chimes, but the Shadow Keeper has been waiting for me for almost fifteen years now, and he’ll be made to wait no longer.
I feel him before I see him. Strange when I’m talking about a shadow, but his very being crawls up my spine, icy fingertips playing over the ivory keys of my vertebrae. His substance fills me from within, thickening the cloying air.
I wonder then if I have morphed into shadow just to meet him.
But no. I glance down at my hand, still fully flesh as I abandon my task of disconnecting the ladder.
Then I turn to face him.
The Shadow Keeper cocks his head.
At first,the shadows take the form of a cloud, but as the bells continue to chime, the shadows assemble, morphing into the form of a man whose great wings are outstretched from end to end of the clock behind him. He’s perched on the ledge, his limbs catlike as he examines me. Moonlight filters through the glass, backlighting the Shadow Keeper in a violet glow.
“Are you ready, Wendy Darling, for me to take away your pain?” It’s not the voice I’m accustomed to, but the one he used for just a moment last night, when he promised coming with him wouldn’t be so bad.
If only I’d agreed, the masquerade would not have occurred, and both my parents would still be breathing. My brothers would not be orphans.
I swallow that thought and face my fate.
“I’m ready,” I say, though the way my voice shakes indicates otherwise. “I want you to take me now. To be yours. Just please, take them too.”
John goes utterly still, though one glance at Michael in his arms keeps him from protesting.
The ladder rattles.
“You see, that’s the problem, Wendy Darling. You’re already mine.”
My heart is pounding. “Please. I can’t—I can’t let them die. If you’ve ever cared for me at all, just bring them with us. I promise I’ll be a much more amiable prisoner knowing they’re safe.”
The shadow pauses. It’s hard to tell, with only the distorted moonlight highlighting his edges, but it looks as though he glances toward the rattling ladder.
“You don’t know what you’re asking. The freedom of theirs you’re bargaining away.”
I falter, but when I think of my parents, my resolve increases. “My parents did the same for me. Saw I was dying and borrowed time. That time might have come to a close, but I’m still grateful for it.” And besides, I’ll find a way to get John and Michael out of this, I don’t add.
“All right, then. But as you’re already mine, and I could easily take you by force, I’ll need something in addition to yourself.”
“What else is there possibly to give?” barks John, to which the Shadow Keeper snaps his head, before slowly turning back toward me.
“A bargain,” he says.
My heart sinks, but somewhere down below someone is yelling that he sees us.
The Shadow Keeper flicks his fingers, and out shoot spindly tendrils that snake down the ladder. Someone cries out, and his outburst is echoed by the pirates.
There’s the crash of splintering wooden crates at the base of the tower.
And then the captain’s voice. “Fine. I’ll get her myself.”
My stomach rolls over as the ladder shakes again.
“What sort of bargain?”
“What sort of bargain are you offering?” the Shadow Keeper teases.
I blink. What else am I to give other than myself? I suppose I’m the heiress to this manor now, as sick as that makes me. Somehow I doubt the Shadow Keeper concerns himself with such mortal cares as wealth.
“Anything,” I finally settle on. “Anything you want.”
The Shadow Keeper places a veiling hand to his chin, thinking. “Anything I want?”
Then he shoots out the same hand.
“What’s the bargain?” asks John.
“The bargain,” says the shadows, “is just as your sister proposed. Anything I want, whenever I choose to call this bargain in. Anything I want, and I’ll bring your brothers along.”
John opens his mouth to protest. “Wendy, you don’t have to—”
But I’ve already taken hold of the shadowed hand.